


No Funeral

by achoo_gesundheit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A study in empathy, Coping, Gen, Pre-Hogwarts, Raising Neville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27688106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achoo_gesundheit/pseuds/achoo_gesundheit
Summary: Augusta was fifty-two years old the year her son didn’t die.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, Augusta Longbottom & Neville Longbottom
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: HPST Empathy Class 2020





	No Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written for the wonderful class on radical empathy hosted by the folks of the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast. Check them out if you haven't already! 
> 
> Many thanks to my spectacular discussion group who helped this story find its feet. Thanks also to Alice and Anna, for proofreading it.

They floo to Diagon Alley on the first day of August. Neville is quiet and clumsy, tripping over the fireplace grate on their way out. Augusta shoots him a look, ensures the parchment packing list is still clutched in his fist, and then marches them out onto the cobblestones. People notice them. Augusta has always been noticed, prides herself on being noticed. Being noticed is power, and Augusta gropes at power like a bandit, like a collector of fine things. Power is protection, and so she stacks power like bricks, building higher and higher walls, and hopes it will keep the evil out. 

+

There was no funeral. When your kids go crazy there’s no service, no marker, no wake. Just a pile of casseroles on the doorstep and a baby who’s too young to eat lasagna. Augusta threw the casseroles in the bin and had baby food delivered by owl post, jars and jars lined up in the pantry like tombstones, her own private graveyard. 

+

Their first stop is Gringott’s. The doors have only just been unlocked for the day, and Augusta is first in line. Frank and Alice did not leave a fortune - soldiers so rarely do - but there is enough. Enough for a new set of robes, anyway, as Neville is too round to fit in his father’s. He vomits in the cart on the way down to the vault, and Augusta rolls her eyes, cleans her shoes, and tells him if he isn’t able to control himself to at least direct his sick over the side of the cart instead. Neville nods, face green and sweaty, and Augusta thinks, “Good. There’s no time for queasiness.”

+

When Frank left for Hogwarts, so many years ago, Augusta was sure she was done raising children. Over a decade later and Neville was nothing like his father. Frank was a chatterbox. He drove her mad with questions and anecdotes and knock knock jokes. Neville didn’t speak until he was nearly five years old, and when he did it was in complete and stuttering sentences. “P-p-please pass the marmalade.” “I w-w-would like to read that book.” “N-n-no, thank you, Gran.” He is unfailingly polite. He doesn’t joke. He hardly smiles. Augusta is sure it’s for the best. Frank smiled constantly, until he couldn’t.

+

They exit Gringott’s into the chattering air of Diagon Alley, new gold glittering in their pockets. Augusta points them towards Madam Malkin’s, keeping a steady grip on Neville’s elbow the whole way. Madam Malkin stands up as they walk in, greets Augusta, and then smiles widely down at Neville. 

“Well, young man, you must be excited to finally be heading off to Hogwarts!” She crouches down a little to see him better. “My word, don’t you just look the spitting image of Alice.”

“Yeah, well, more’s the pity,” Augusta says, giving Neville a shove towards the fitting area. “He could’ve had his father’s looks.”

“Frank certainly was a handsome man,” Madam Malkin agrees.

“Is,” Augusta corrects her. “My son is still living, thank you very much.”

Madam Malkin balks. “Of course, Mrs. Longbottom. Forgive me.” She turns to Neville. “Now, let’s get some robes on you, shall we?”

+

Augusta was fifty-two years old the year her son didn’t die. The aurors called her out of a society meeting, and Augusta knew within minutes of her absence the news would spread, dripping off eager tongues like honey - “Have you heard what happened to the Longbottom boy?” Later on, in the Janus Thickey Ward, Augusta watched her son spill tea all over his hospital gown. She pulled a handkerchief out of her handbag and mopped it up before the nurses even got to them. “We are alive,” she thought. “They will not see us broken.”

+

Neville’s robes are pressed and folded neatly in their parcel, and Augusta instructs him to cross it off their list. They’re just about out the door when she sees the collection box. “War orphans wardrobe fund: help a child in need look smart indeed!” reads the placard on the front. Augusta drops a sickle in the box, and it rattles down on top of its fellows with a satisfying thunk. She nods regally to Madam Malkin, and sweeps Neville back out to the street. 

+

There was a memorial that year, after the attacks that sent her son to the hospital and the Potters to their cemetery plot. Some kind of fundraiser for those children orphaned by the war. The Potter boy was long gone by then, whisked away to god knew where, but so many other children lost their parents that year too. Neville’s parents were not dead, though. He was not an orphan, and they were not invited.

+

Diagon Alley has become more crowded with shoppers in their absence. There seem to be children everywhere, popping in and out of store fronts, laughing, yelling, pairing off into twos and threes, friends not seen since the school year ended. Neville sticks close to Augusta. They push their way through the collected students and on to their next destination. No one stops them to say hello, and Augusta thinks, “Good. There’s no time for pleasantries.”

+

Her grandson grew up in hospital wards, crawling under cots and making friends with the children in intensive care. Augusta watched as one by one they left him, this one discharged, that one deceased. But Augusta didn’t have friends either. She had contacts, connections, acquaintances - but friends? She didn’t see the need for them. After all, if she wanted a casserole she would order one. 

+

Neville and Augusta stop for lunch at a small cafe off the alley where there are no children milling about and everyone eating there will ignore them. She orders Neville a cucumber sandwich and a cup of tea, and they eat together in silence. It is occasionally interrupted by the waiter, or by Augusta reminding Neville to close his mouth while he chews. His two front teeth have grown in large and crooked, and Augusta thinks it’s good he never smiles. 

+

Neville got his first loose tooth the day after his sixth birthday, and spent that whole first day flicking it back and forth with his tongue. On the second day, Augusta magicked a string to it and slammed a door to get him to stop wiggling. Then she conjured a handkerchief and told him to stop crying, blow his nose, and put his bloody shirt in the laundry room. He didn’t wiggle any more teeth after that, and Augusta thought, “Good. There’s no time for indecision.”

+

They’re standing in front of a bookshelf in Flourish and Blotts, stacks of tomes piled higher than anyone could reach, and Neville’s eyes are wide and panicked. “Just pick one,” Augusta tells him. “Any one you want.” It’s an offering, a reward for a well-behaved day, for not losing the list, for not stumbling and dirtying his trousers on the cobblestones. She watches as Neville scans the shelves, eyes tripping from one title to the next, and she wills herself more patient. When they finally make it out of the store an eternity later, Neville misses a step and pitches over the threshold, careening headlong into a group of older boys, who sneer and shove him back. Augusta catches him by the arm and drags him away, ignoring the jeers that follow behind them. 

+

Neville got picked on for the first time at age seven, knocked down by bigger, stronger boys, and he came home with a swollen lip and bloody knees. Augusta summoned a box of bandages and said, “Clean up,” and he did. He never came to her again, but Augusta replaced the bandages from the bathroom whenever they went missing. “Good,” she thought. “There’s no time for misery.”

+

Their last stop is St. Mungo’s. Neville knows the way. He winds his way down twisting corridors, dodging healers and patients with an odd sort of grace Augusta never sees anywhere else. Inside the Janus Thickey Ward, Neville is outspoken and confident, showing his parents his new book and his new robes, brandishing his Hogwarts letter like a trophy. Frank and Alice sit there in silence. Whether they are proud is impossible to tell, but Augusta lets those small tendrils of pride she keeps buried in her heart creep into feeling. This is a brave boy. The world may not see it yet, but she does. After all, she has built that bravery piece by piece over the last ten years. He does not see it yet, but she does. 

+

Neville had his first nightmare at age four, and knocked softly on Augusta’s door. She didn’t know what he could possibly have to be scared about. “Go back to sleep,” she told him, not even sitting up in bed, and he went, and he did not knock again. Augusta thought, “Good. There is no time to be scared.”

+

Neville is eleven years old. He has magic, and a Hogwarts letter to prove it. He has two parents, his father’s wand, his mother’s cheeks, and all the sense Augusta knew to give him. In three weeks she will put him on a train, and she is not worried. Augusta doesn’t worry. She acts. She demands. She changes things before they have a chance to cause concern. She doesn’t worry about Neville, but she does change him. Worry gets you nowhere. Worry makes you scared. There’s no time to be scared. The world doesn’t deserve their fear.


End file.
